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POLITICS: Who Comes Next?

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Memphis mayor
Willie Herenton is sure he's doing a public service by running for
reelection for a fifth term next year -- in other ways, that is, than just by
offering his person.

"There's a value to having an incumbent run. If I weren't running, you'd have
the same kind of free-for-all in the mayor's race you have in the 9th District,"
Herenton observed last week while attending a fund-raising event for General
Sessions Criminal Court judge Gwen Rooks at the Silver Spoon club in East
Memphis.

The mayor then
went on to note pointedly that he had "no dog in the hunt" in that crowded race
to succeed Congressman Harold Ford Jr., now a U.S. Senate candidate. (A
large field is competing in the Democratic congressional primary, and Jake
Ford, brother of the current congressman, has filed as an independent to
oppose the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees in the general election.)

Looking beyond
next year's planned reelection race, Herenton said he had one more service that
he wanted to perform for the electorate -- one that, by implication,
Representative Ford had deigned not to pursue. "I intend to start very carefully
organizing the matter of a succession. We need to have some continuity in
government," the mayor said.

The obvious
corollary to that, of course, is that if he is reelected next year, his
yet-to-be-designated successor would be running instead of himself in 2011, when
Herenton would be 70 years old.

But that would be then. This is now, when -- says the mayor -- he's still rarin'
to go. "I wish I was on the ballot this year," Herenton said, rubbing his
palms together in a gesture of eager anticipation.

The mayor was
reminded that getting him on this year's ballot has also been a desideratum for
his longtime antagonist Thaddeus Matthews, whose "Operation Fed Up"
apparently failed to meet this week's deadline for enough signatures (some
70,000 would have been needed) to force a recall election for the mayor.At last week's event, Herenton gave a
convincing shrug of unconcern. "I really haven't paid much attention to that,"
he said.

Over the weekend, Matthews made one last effort to collect signatures,
shepherding an organized effort at the intersection of Summer and Graham. He was
realistic about his prospects, however, and had a fallback position. "I have
40,000 to 45,000 names, addresses, and telephone numbers that will create a
database [so] that whoever the viable candidate next year will have a list going
in."

Matthews said he
had been advised by attorneys that his campaign should be judged not by a state
law requiring 15 percent of the total number of county voters but by a city
charter provision requiring only 10 percent of voters in the last city election.

By that standard,
Matthews maintained, only 11,000 or so signatures would be necessary to qualify
his referendum effort, and that was "probably" the number he would turn in.

"We may not win
the battle, but we'll win the war" was Matthews' final word on Operation Fed Up.

"Mr. Twelve-to-One." Meanwhile, another
well-known local warrior was girding for what could turn into a more
conventional battle for the helm of the city. Former two-term city councilman
John Vergos, best known these days as the head man at the family-owned
Rendezvous restaurant, says that, while he is by no means committed to a race
for mayor in 2007, he wants to make known his "availability" as a possible
successor to (or opponent of) Mayor Herenton.

Apprised of Herenton's intent to arrange a succession,
Vergos commented drily during a lengthy conversation at the Rendezvous last
week, "I didn't think that was part of the mayor's duties under the charter to
designate a successor." He said he had talked with several other Memphians who,
he believes, would be good candidates for mayor. Among them: Belz Enterprises
head Ron Belz, Blue Cross/Blue Shield executive Calvin Anderson,
hospital executive Gary Shorb, all-purpose civic activist Gale Rose.

Another one would be Rick Masson, formerly finance
director and CAO under Herenton and now director of the Plough Foundation. "But
he's too close to the mayor and wouldn't be likely to do it," Vergos said.

In the event, nobody else on Vergos' short list has
committed. Hence, his decision to make his own interest known. "The one thing we
need to do is to avoid the kind of hacks whose whole life has been about
politics. What the city needs is someone who has demonstrated competence,
ability, and success in a variety of fields."

As it happens, Vergos thinks that's a fair description of
himself. He points out that he has run a shipping company and developed real
estate in addition to overseeing one of the city's most famous restaurants. He
thinks that Memphis' need for sound leadership is such that demographic factors
will play a lesser role among the voters than they have in the past.

"This city has tumbled into confusion," Vergos said. "It's
ironic that the mayor has almost as much money in his campaign fund as the city
does in its reserve fund."

As a councilman from 1995 to 2003, Vergos was known as
something of a maverick, earning the nickname, in some circles, of "Mr.
Twelve-to-One," for the frequency of his dissenting votes. He suggests that most
of those votes had to do with zoning issues and questions of urban sprawl and
points that he had his share of accomplishments - naming the his work on behalf
of the downtown bluff walk and improvements on Sam Cooper Boulevard.

As for Willie Herenton, Vergos says the current mayor did
well "in his first three terms," but has foundered since. He shakes his head and
finds an analogy in a baseball hero of yore, whose last time at bat was,
famously, a home run. "You have to do what Ted Williams did, quit while
you're ahead."

And if he runs and gets elected, Vergos says he'll
term-limit himself. "Eight years is about right."

With his expression of interest, Vergos joins a growing
number of self-acknowledged mayoral prospects. Among them are current city
council members Jack Sammons and CarolChumney, both of whom
concede their interest. Councilman Rickey Peete is also said to be
interested, and the names of councilman Myron Lowery and former MLGW head
Herman Morris have also received a fair amount of play.

[image-1'Thanks but No Thanks:
"Oh, I'm grateful to him as I can be," said Sidney Chism of activist
David Upton. Not that the newly nominated county commissioner, an
ex-Teamster leader and former party head, is best buds with Upton. In fact, the
two are usually at odds over intramural Democratic Party matters.

That was Chism's point. He was crediting Upton for his yeoman's work on behalf
of outgoing commissioner Walter Bailey, who allowed a Democratic primary
campaign to be run in his name despite a state Supreme Court decision declaring
him term-limited and thus ineligible to serve again.

Bailey, with 33
percent, and another regular-party Democrat, Darrick Harris, with 26
percent, ended up splitting a vote that might otherwise have coalesced against
Democratic nominee-by-plurality J.W. Gibson, who, weeks before the
election, was formally denied "bona fide" status by the local Democratic
committee, on account of 10 years' worth of
Republican Party activity. Chism, though, was one of several Democrats who
supported Gibson and thought him both a legitimate convert and a good prospect
for the commission. Hence the thank-you to Upton.

Chism made it
clear, however, that his mock gratitude would not extend to supporting John
Freeman, reportedly the candidate of Upton and other members of the party's
Ford faction to be vice chair of a county Democratic coordinating committee for
the August general election campaigns.

Chism ally Gale
Jones Carson, the state Democratic secretary and Herenton's press aide, has
been asked by party chairman Matt Kuhn to head that campaign and, insisted Chism,
"The [coordinating committee] chairman ought to pick her own people to work
with." Unsurprisingly, Carson agrees.

Incidentally, the recent Democratic primary campaign saw a
prominent role played by another member from the party's Herenton-Chism orbit,
lawyer Richard Fields, who was forced off the Democratic committee last
year for his legal work on behalf of Republican Terry Roland, whose
challenge to the election of Democrat Ophelia Ford in a District 29 state
Senate election resulted in the voiding of that election.

Under the name "Shelby County Voter Education Committee,"
Fields paid for radio spots advising voters not to "waste" their ballots by
voting for Bailey or for CleoKirk, another term-limited candidate
for the seat won by Chism.

Had either Bailey or Kirk finished ahead, the local
Democratic committee would have named a substitute nominee for the general
election ballot.

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On the long campaign’s final night, most of the major candidates were working Shelby County.

Locally, the blue wave still had power, though most Democratic challengers to incumbent Republicans fell short; statewide, the red wall remained stout in wins by Lee and Blackburn; the Council's referenda all go down to defeat.
(ORIGINAL ARTICLE RESTORED.)